Louise Graham, entering the dining car for breakfast, received a
surprise at beholding Lee Bryant half way along the aisle at one of
the smaller tables. He laid down the spoon with which he was delving
into a half of a cantaloupe and got quickly to his feet to greet her.
"So you're home again," he said, after shaking hands. "Your father
told me when I met him that you were in the East. Will you share my
table?"
"I use 'shopping' as a pretext for a jaunt now and then," she laughed,
when they were seated. "Once in a while the lure of city dissipations
seizes me; I had a week in Washington and three in New York with
friends, which will satisfy me for a few months. You were just
starting work on your project when I went away. Are you making good
progress?"
"Very. But I'll make still better from now on. It's a case with me of
do or be 'done', of dig out or be buried. I may as well be open about
it, for everyone will know presently, anyway. The project must be
completed in ninety days."
"Ninety days? Great heavens!"
"That's what I said, too," Lee stated, with a smile. "Several times,
in fact. There is an old law, it seems, that enables interested
parties to hold a stop-watch on me."
"And what's the penalty if you fail to finish the work in those three
months?"
"Cancellation of my water right."
"Cancellation? Surely not."
"I tried to convince the Land and Water Board of that in Santa Fé, but
made no headway."
"How outrageous!" she exclaimed.
The waiter at her elbow recalled her to the requirements of the
moment. Still with a trace of colour in her cheeks, the result of her
indignation, she scanned the menu and wrote out her order.
"The thing is so utterably unreasonable," she resumed, more calmly.
"Why did they let you start if they proposed afterward to hang a sword
above your head?"
"The Board was ignorant of this law, as was everybody else, until it
was brought to light by the applicant for cancellation," said Lee, "a
certain Rodriguez, of Rosita."
"Who is he?"
Bryant shook his head.
"Don't ask me. No friend, at any rate."
She regarded him steadily for a moment.
"Probably a man put forward by Mr. Menocal."
"I suppose so," said he.
"But the idea of expecting you to build all those miles of ditch in
ninety days and in the winter time! I wonder that you can be so calm."
"Why shouldn't I be calm? My mind's made up. I'm going to complete the
project on time."
The words were uttered in a matter-of-fact tone that impressed Louise
Graham far more than would any vehement assertion. As he had stated,
his mind was made up, quite made up on the point. Others might think
what they pleased: it carried no weight with him. The thing was
certain.
She examined the engineer with a new interest. There was a difference
in him, what would be hard to say. One couldn't exactly put finger on
it. Something in his gray eyes, perhaps; something in the sharper
stamp of his aquiline nose, of his lips, of his bronzed jaw; something
in his whole bearing. It went deeper than features, too; she sensed a
change in the spirit of the man from what it had been that day of his
going down to Kennard, when he strolled with her in her garden. He was
less bouyant, less manifest, less elated, but more poised and sure. A
change, yes.
Then her thoughts reverted to his tremendous undertaking.
"How long have you known this?" she inquired.
"Since the day before yesterday. Pat Carrigan, my contractor, and I
came to the capital at once to discuss the affair with the Board. The
news was--well, a good deal of a facer."
She nodded.
"It would be," were her words. "You'll need more workmen and horses,
of course."
"All I can get. Pat went to Denver last night, and the labour agencies
there and at Pueblo, Colorado Springs, Santa Fé, El Paso, and places
farther east doubtless by now are rounding up men. We picked up an
idle grading outfit yesterday in Santa Fé; it will be loaded and
started by to-night."
Her face became a little rueful.
"That all sounds so big that I hesitate to make the offer I had in
mind when I asked," she said.
"What was it, Miss Graham?"
"Father has twelve or fifteen teams and some scrapers used on the
ranch. The horses aren't working at this season. He would be glad to
let you have them, I know, if he thought they would be of any aid. But
with what you'll have, perhaps you----"
"I want them; I'll be more than grateful for them. I need every man
and horse available. I can't get too many. Each labourer and each
horse counts just that much more. It's a great kindness on your part
to suggest their use to me, and I'll stop on the way to camp to see
your father."
"He'll consent to your employing them," said she, confidently. "Dad
likes a man who puts up a good fight, and you're doing that. A fight
against great odds."
Bryant's face lightened with a smile almost sunny.
"By heavens, it's comforting to have a friend like you," he exclaimed,
"when one's in a tight place!"
The waiter began to place her meal, and he turned his head to look out
of the window while his mind recalled his talk with Ruth in the hotel
parlour at Kennard. Little comfort he had had from her then. Her
interest in the project, in fact, as he reviewed the summer, had been
slight, always casual, concerned only with its financial factor, never
particularly sympathetic, never warm, never eager. The thought struck
him unpleasantly. It had never occurred to him before. He wondered if
this indifference would continue when they were married, if in ten
years--when he was about forty, say--she would be even less inclined
to know his work, like the wives of some men he could name who had
their own separate interests, who gave their husbands no sympathy at
their tasks, nor courage, nor heart, and whose single cognizance of it
had to do with the size of the income.
But he drove this depressing and disloyal speculation from his mind.
Ruth was young and perhaps restless, but she was sweet and full of
promise. Time would round out her character; and when she had matured,
she would be one in a million--a mate who cheered and inspired. Every
bit of that! She would presently see the real values of things;
Charlie Menocal's monkey tricks would no longer amuse her, and she
would perceive what a shallow harlequin he was, while she would
comprehend Gretzinger's vicious, unprincipled sophistry and turn in
disgust from the man. She was inexperienced, that was all.
"It will be good to be back once more where one has plenty of room,"
Louise Graham remarked. "In that liking, you see, I'm a genuine
Westerner. That's what I missed most when at school in the East, at
Bryn Mawr--space. I wanted my big mountains and wide mesa and long,
restful views. And how I galloped on my pony through the sagebrush
when I came back during summer vacations!"
The recollection set her eyes glistening.
"You still do it when you return from a trip, I'll venture to say,"
Lee stated, marking the glow of her face.
"Yes, I do. Almost the very first thing. It clears my brain of city
noise and sights and grime. It soothes my nerves. Nothing does that
like our keen air with its scent of sagebrush."
"Then I should see you riding up my way soon."
"Oh, I'll certainly want to follow the progress of your work, Mr.
Bryant. With father's teams working for you, I'll feel as if we had a
part in the race." After a pause she proceeded, "The contractor's
outfit went up and you were just starting the dam and excavation about
the time I went East. Father mentioned in a letter to me that he had
dropped in at your camp once or twice when at Bartolo."
"Yes, I showed him what we were doing. We've had other visitors
occasionally. Miss Gardner and Miss Martin--at Sarita Creek, you
remember--come at times. Miss Martin is a niece of Mr. McDonnell, of
Kennard."
"So Mrs. McDonnell told me. Just before I left I called at their
cabins again. But I had no more luck that time than the first; they
were away somewhere. Well," she concluded, with a smile, "perhaps the
third time will win; that's the rule. I'll go another time soon."
"You'll like them, I'm sure. They're both charming, I think. Unusual
girls."
"I'll go soon," she repeated.
"My desire possibly will be understood by you," said he, after a
slight hesitation, "when I say that Miss Gardner and I are engaged to
be married. So it would please me immensely if you two became good
friends."
Louise Graham showed some surprise. But this immediately changed to
smiling interest.
"Accept my congratulations, Mr. Bryant," she said. "You may count on
our being friends. Hereafter she and Miss Martin must come to our
ranch whenever they will. I suppose they ride up where you are nearly
every day; Miss Gardner, in particular, must be tremendously devoted
to your project and now tremendously excited, too, over your race
against time. Who wouldn't be, in her place!"
"Naturally," said Lee, with all the heartiness he could muster in his
voice. But to himself, at least, his tone rang hollow.
When an hour or so after they had finished their meal they alighted
from their Pullmans at Kennard, the echo of his forced reply still
sounded in his mind with persistent irony. He was glad he had an
interview with McDonnell before him that would silence it, the
negotiating of a large private loan.